Tag Archives: Grand Canyon

Like so many holiday weekends at the national parks, this one was no different. Parking lots were full, people were milling around the sequoia grove. As a Park Ranger, you were expected to work holidays as that’s when so many people visit the parks. One perk of working the holiday as a federal employee was getting double time, overtime.

As I walked up to the Sherman Tree, Sequoia National Park’s iconic tree as the world’s largest, one visitor in particular caught my eye. She was carrying a small tree out to the parking lot with her, a trail of dirt left behind from the root ball hanging off the bottom. I stopped her, saying “Ma’am, excuse me, ma’am?” She stopped by, but spoke in broken English, “Yes?”

“You can’t take that with you. It’s illegal to remove plants or other natural items from the park.”

She didn’t seemed to comprehend, staring at me blankly. I kept repeating myself. Finally she handed the tree over.

As Labor Day weekend comes to a close, this memory is woven in my conscience. Living in a mountain town whose very existence depends on tourism, these types of events still occur pretty commonly today. But it’s also seems to me that holiday weekends seem to bring out the weird and wacky in a way rarely seen on a typical summer day.

You know what I’m talking about. Kids who decide to play a soccer game in a fragile mountain meadow in the middle of Yosemite National Park. Or one my friend Barb shared with me today about a tourist in Nederland who spying a postcard with our state flower Columbine accused the town of making a buck on a terrible tragedy, not understanding that the high school Columbine is named after the wildflower. Visitors who inquire innocently, “when do the deer turn into elk?” These kinds of crazy questions and incidents seem to that much more prevalent on a holiday weekend.

Perhaps it’s because folks who normally don’t spend a lot of time in the great outdoors make the big leap to go to the mountains or parks on a holiday weekend. It’s a long weekend, and they figure they should leave the familiar urban environment and make the trek to the mountains. They’re not familiar with wilderness/park rules and regulations and so as a consequence do what they would do while at home. Pick those wildflowers, pull up that tree, try to pet the elk.

It’s hard working in a field where everyone you work with is pretty much an expert on ecology, wilderness and conservation. It’s hard because when you bear witness to these strange acts and oddities, you can’t laugh or make fun, even though you really, really wan to. You can only try to keep your poise and act as if this is just an everyday occurrence and it’s not big deal at all.

However, once particular incident occurred here in Colorado that I simply could not keep my composure. While driving on I-70 west towards Grand Junction, we stopped at a place to eat near Silverthorne, Colorado. I guess we must have looked like we knew the area, because a tourist stopped us and asked “Can you give me directions to the Grand Canyon? I know it’s near by…” I was dumbfounded. In that moment, not mentally prepared as I had been donning my NPS uniform, I said, “Are you kidding me?”

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed as my husband calmly explained to her, that in fact the Grand Canyon was not anywhere close to where we were. That in fact, it was located in another state entirely and would take a full day’s drive to get there.

Now as I’ve gotten older, I know as the holiday weekend rolls around, expect the unexpected.

Click clack, click clack, click clack. The sound of my trekking poles is about all I can focus on as I slowly, ever so slowly make my way up the Bright Angel Trail at Grand Canyon National Park. We are on the last three miles of our bucket list backpack trip to hike into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Of course, if you hike into the bottom of the Grand Canyon, that means inevitably that you must hike out. And the hike out is no easy feat.

There’s an old backpacker trick about slyly putting rocks in your partner’s pack to slow them down. As I make my way along the red dirt, I swear someone has put rocks in my pack. Every step I take, the pack feels that much heavier. Every step I take, I can feel my hamstring and calf muscles straining, and the aching on my shoulders is ever present, despite my best efforts to adjust my shoulder harness. Every now and then, I sneak a peek up, and all I can see is the trail endlessly switching back and forth like a serpentine snake slithering up the sandstone walls. At home, I can cover 3 miles in less than an hour easily. How can it possibly take this long?

One of the suspension bridges spanning the Colorado River

The National Park Service must have foreseen how many of us visitors would get duped into going deeper and deeper into the canyon and how long, arduous and hot the hike out would be. Along the popular Bright Angel Trail they have built “Rest” shelters every 1.5 miles down to Indian Garden, a back country camp site, ranger station, and popular day hike destination. These shelters have drinking water and large signs reminding people to drink, put your feet up, eat salt — in essence do what you must to survive the hike out. Reminders that every year around 250 hikers have to be rescued from the Grand Canyon.

My painful hike out is the ending to a memorable two days in the Grand Canyon. After almost a year of talking about this trip, my friend, Megan Schwitzer and I finally secured a back country permit to camp at the canyon’s Bright Angel campground near Phantom Ranch. Since we had to secure the permit months in advance, we were taking a huge gamble with the weather. Hoping that early November would insure cooler temperatures, but gambling that we wouldn’t run into early season rain or snow. Our gamble paid off, but just barely. The day after we finished our hike, gray clouds, cold temperatures and rain poured down on the canyon’s rim.

Bright Angel campground

We had two days of perfect weather — with clear skies and sweeping views of the canyon in every direction as we made our way down the South Kaibab Trail. Following more of a ridge, rather than hugging the canyon walls as the Bright Angel Trail does, scenic vistas are plentiful. Hiking into the canyon is so overwhelming in terms of scenery, I feel I can’t capture the feeling either in words or pictures. Gazing upon the multi-hued layers of rock and vast expanses, I feel like a mere speck compared to this giant chasm. Filled with awe and inspiration as we take it all in, we make our way down the 7.5 mile trail descending quickly into the canyon’s depths.

It isn’t long before we are crossing an immense suspension bridge over the muddy Colorado River. After reading an information panel, I find out that during the construction of the bridge, hundreds of men were used to carry the largest pieces of the bridge on their shoulders down to the river. And I think my back is aching from carrying my backpack… As I peer out on the river, it appears so serene and peaceful, meandering its way through the canyon. It’s hard to believe that in fact, this river carved this canyon over millions of years of geologic time.

We make our way to the Bright Angel campground, which really doesn’t seem so much like a remote backcountry camping site, but like a small village bustling with activity. As we set up our tent along Bright Angel creek, chatter and laughter is ringing out among the campers all around us. Everyone seems happy and joyful. I’m surprised by the number of “senior” hikers there are, many sporting graying hair and weathered faces.

After cooking up the Backpackers Pantry special of lasagna for me and beef stroganoff for Megan, we spend time chatting as we wait for the Phantom Ranch Canteen to re-open. Phantom Ranch is a creek side resort at the bottom of the canyon that offers lodging and meals to those who don’t choose to endure schlepping a backpack into and out of the canyon. For around $140/night, you can enjoy deluxe accommodation in a single-sex bunk house, or if you’re lucky, a cute and cozy stone cabin. Another $50 buys you a steak dinner complete with yummy chocolate cake.

I know this, not because I got to savor either one, but because we met some hikers staying at the ranch during our evening run to the Canteen. After serving dinner, the Canteen opens up to us backpackers who wish to purchase beer, snacks and enjoy some socializing with our fellow hikers. Long wooden tables that invite community dining (or socializing) fill the room. Megan and I are drawn to the postcards they sell, which you can drop in a leather pouch to be hauled out by mule and then mailed via U.S. postal service. We cap our evening with a treat of backpacker cheesecake and red wine, and I purchase a couple of snacks for the hike out the following day.

Finishing the Bright Angel Trail

Around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, we finish our epic backpack trip, our legs quivering like jelly from the extreme exertion of hauling a backpack up 4300 feet in one day. We take our final pictures and gingerly make our way to the car — thankfully ridding ourselves of the packs. We’ve splurged on a room at the Kachina Lodge, perched right on the south rim of the canyon, and I’m ever so grateful to make my way to our overnight digs. Even the short walk up 15 steps to our room feels like agony on my aching calves, and all I can think of is taking a shower and getting something to eat. But the feeling is empowering to know that we have done what very few people will do — we’ve hiked in and out of the Grand Canyon. As my friend Megan said, the memories are indeed everlasting and priceless.

A hot topic among friends, family and co-workers is talk about a bucket list, specifically what’s on your bucket list? Well, for those among us who love the outdoors, I have developed my own bucket list — the backpacking bucket list. Fortunately, for me, I had the chance to cross one of those off my list last month, when my husband I took the Durango and Silverton train into the San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado and backpack into Chicago Basin. Today I embark on second bucket list backpack. I’ll warn you in advance for those who are reading this in hopes of learning more about life in the mountains of Colorado – this is way, way off topic.

Today, I’m flying to Arizona to meet a girlfriend for a backpack trip into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. My interest in doing this trip was sparked twelve years ago when I visited Grand Canyon National Park for the first time as a National Park Service employee. One of the Park Service’s national training centers is at Grand Canyon National Park and I was fortunate enough to attend a 2-week training there back in 2003. Grand Canyon is considered one of the “Crown Jewels” of the National Park Service and for good reason. Standing on the rim, looking out amongst all those reds, oranges of the sandstone layers is breathtaking. Some of the oldest rocks on in North America are found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon — over 2 billions years old. It’s an amazing place.

I attended my 2-week training the first two weeks of December, and my friend and I used to get up early each morning to watch the sun rise of the canyon. To watch the sun illuminate layer upon layer of rock as the sun rose was magical. During the weekend we laid over, we hiked down to Plateau Point, an overlook of the Colorado River entailing a climb of 3000 feet to get back to the rim. At 12 miles round trip, this was about as an ambitious a hike as we wanted to do for one single day. But a part of me wanted more — I wanted to get to the bottom of the canyon, to stick my toe into the mighty Colorado River. Seed planted….

Fast forward 12 years later, and during last winter, my friend, Megan and I started to discussing the possiblity of a backpack trip into the Canyon. We at first looked at March and April, but the logistics of both our jobs got in the way. And there was no way I was going to do this trip May – September, as the heat in the bottom easily reaches over 100 degrees on any given day. Living in Nederland, anything over 80 degrees feels hot to me. So we settled on November.

Getting a permit to do anything in the Grand Canyon is no easy feat. River rafters who want to raft the Colorado River wait up to 10 years or more on a wait list to get a permit. Backpacking is a bit easier, but still challenging. The policy by which the Park Service issues them has got to be the most confusing, convoluted method possible. They start issuing permits for a certain month, precisely four months ahead of time. You can’t book it online, you must fax in your permit. However, even if you fax your permit on Day 1, they put all the people who fax into a “pot” by random order, and then start issuing permits after all permit applications have been faxed for the entire day.

We got an email two weeks later — DENIED. We kept trying and trying, requesting different campsites, different trails, anything we could think of, we’d call and they’d say there is a spot, we’d fax, and the email would come, “We’re very sorry….”. Friends suggested we try to for a walk-up permit. The instructions for that were even more confusing. You go to the office, you get a number, they call your number, nothing is available, you get issued another number for the next day. If you’re lucky, by Day 3, you might get a permit. Given that I was flying to Arizona, and only had a limited number of vacation days, this didn’t seem very doable either.

Finally, several weeks ago, my friend called the Backcountry Office, and they again said a spot had opened up at one of the Backcountry camp sites, but others were applying too. We faxed again, not expecting much, but amazingly, I got an email four days later with the magical words, “Congratulations! you’ve received a permit for Bright Angel campground.” So tomorrow, we embark on our bucket backpack list down the South Kaibab Trail to the Grand Canyon.

I’ll try to post Tuesday night with the memorable details of how our trip went.

Warning: there may be some off topic references in this post that do not pertain to life in the mountains of Colorado.

Ok, got that out of the way, here we go. I received my Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus ski pass in the mail the other day and I was pretty pumped. This is the first year I’ve sprung for a mult resort pass, and am hoping the Snow Gods cooperate and bring plenty of snow so I can get my money’s worth. The RMSP+ includes unlimited skiing at Winter Park (my fave), Copper Mountain, Eldora (the Nederland local resort) and six days at Steamboat. Knowing that ski resorts will start to open in about a month, all the season I’m in full court press to hit the weights and get myself ready.

Downhill skiing is one of the most fun sports I’ve ever participated in (and you know this, if you’ve been reading this blog or know me personally), but it can also be one of the most painful for the legs, especially in the early season. When you’re schussing down the slopes, your thighs will burn in the most intense way possible. And by the end of the first ski day, your legs will feel like jelly. While there’s nothing really like skiing, doing lots of steep hiking, and lots of training can help ease the transition. Right now, I’m trying to hit the weights hard, doing lots of squats and lunges, as well as core work to help my body get ready. And getting in the last of the autumn hikes by doing a few peaks can be helpful as well.

But confession time (here’s the off topic part), I have an ulterior motive that’s driving my training as well. My friend, Megan and I planned a backpacking trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for the beginning of November. With over 4000 feet of climbing to do to get back out of the canyon with a full backpack on, doing some training now seems like a very good and smart thing.

So when I have those days like today with the rain coming down and am feeling less than motivated to get my butt in gear and do some training, I come back to this. Just how much do I want to suffer in November? Whether it’s hiking up from the Grand Canyon or schussing down the ski slopes, it seems it’s better to suffer a little every day now in hopes that next month is just a bit more enjoyable.